When Pinterest first came on the scene, I was super-excited.  It was the tool that I, a visual thinker and avid bookmarker, had always wanted and not been able to envision.  (Did that make sense?)  Unfortunately, over the past few years, they’ve gotten a bit big for their britches and begun making changes that are making the site increasingly difficult to use and decreasingly useful.

One major change is that this past fall the content guidelines were changed to specifically forbid “anti-vaccine” information and any “treatments” Pinterest deems “false.”  In other words, they’re coming down hard on content creators in the alternative health community, removing entire Pinterest accounts (without warning) and blocking entire natural health sites from being Pinnable.

For those of us who value this type of information, this does major damage to the site’s usefulness.  If we can’t save this information on Pinterest, we have to go elsewhere to save it — and it just might be less trouble to do everything at the more — dare I say it? — tolerant other site.  I’ve been poking around, trying out other options.

Similar Websites

The obvious choice is similar sites.  There are a number of respectable options in certain niches.  For instance, there’s Foodgawker.  These are great for what they are, but we’re looking for something with broader usefulness.  I’ve come across two sites, in particular, that show promise.

To be completely honest, they both come across a little “spammy” right now.  I suspect this is largely because they don’t have a lot of mainstream users yet, and I’m hoping the balance will shift as “normal” users filter in.  So in that spirit, I’ve been giving them a try.  (You’ll notice my profiles contain mostly my own content right now.  I’m not trying to be all egotistical; I’m just pretty new to these platforms and the easiest way for me to get a handful of posts up was to scroll through my own blog feed.)

Mamby is the first of the two.

It feels a little more like “microblogging” than like pinning.  Each new post you make has a title, image, link, and content.  The content doesn’t have to be long, but it seems to have the capacity to be.  This content goes in a “WYSIWYG” editor, so you can add formatting.  The image, however, will not/cannot be brought over from the URL; you have to upload it manually.

I’ve noticed a few odd quirks.  For instance, I can’t add an Amazon link — even if it’s just a regular, long Amazon link, not an affiliate link or anything like that.  Also, you can’t create a board from this dialog.  It’s easy to add a board, but you have to have already done it before you try to create a post that belongs to that board.

The content guidelines are pretty simple:

And each post seems to go through (quick) moderation before going live.  I find this surprising, given that some of the content seems spammy to me, but at least there seems to be some flexibility in what you’re allowed to post.

Supposedly they pay you in Bitcoin for view and likes, but I don’t find that a particularly compelling feature.

I can’t find any way to link to a particular user profile (I can click on my own, but it takes me to my profile settings, not a public profile page), and my boards page doesn’t seem very useful to an outsider.

An individual board page looks more like a Pinterest board, although I’m not certain if someone else could navigate to that board.  (Anyone want to try it?  Click here for the Natural Health board and let’s see if it works.)  Because the link doesn’t include a username, if it does work for someone else, that suggests that a given board name cannot be used by more than one user.

One handy feature is highlighted on this page: if you add a link but no image, it will include a screenshot of the page. I find that very helpful for non-visual content.

Another option is Juxtapost.

This one bears a stronger resemblance to Pinterest, in my opinion, and shows real promise, although it isn’t nearly as polished as Pinterest.

A lot of the content is clearly salesy/junky, so it currently might not be particularly useful for content discovery.

A number of the posts include models in skimpy clothing, so that’s another reason to be a bit wary of the main feed.  However, this platform seems to be well-designed for saving content.

When boards are created, they’re placed in categories, and the categories have broader coverage than Pinterest’s categories (which users have noted have some significant gaps).  There are also subcategories for most categories, but using them is optional.  When you log in, several of your boards are displayed across the top of the screen.  This isn’t fancy, but it’s nice and compact.

If you click on the drop-down next to “all your Postboards,” it pops down as a flyout.

(Please excuse the fact that a couple of the default boards are still there because I haven’t renamed or deleted them yet.)

Adding a post works just like it does at Pinterest.  There’s a bookmarklet you can add to your browser, allowing you to add a post from any webpage.

A few things to note about this page.  First of all, note that you can add a new Postboard from this screen, so if you decide the new post belongs on a board you don’t have yet, you don’t have to backtrack to create it.  Otherwise, just pick one from the drop-down.  Also, there are a couple of other recommendation options.  (I haven’t tried these yet.)  If you prefer, you can upload images directly to Juxtapost.

My profile doesn’t have a pretty URL, but if I visit it, it looks like this:

There are more boards farther down the page, but notice how they’re sorted into categories.  (I haven’t figured out how to add a real profile picture, or if that’s even possible.)

One really interesting feature of Juxtapost is that they’ve incorporated the ability to export your boards.  As any long-time Pinterest user knows, this is a key feature that Pinterest is lacking.  With Juxtapost, it’s as easy as clicking that “Export your posts to Excel” link you see there in the left sidebar of the profile page.  That immediately downloads a CSV file that can be opened in MS Excel, LibreOffice Calc, or any other spreadsheet program.  I was going to show you a screenshot of what the export looks like, but it’s awkward because it’s so wide.  Instead, let me show you what displays in each column for a single entry:

Column 1: These basic cookies are gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free (if desired), and egg-free. (They do contain nuts.) Recipe includes a chocolate variation.
Column 2: https://titus2homemaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/PaleoCookies-pin1.jpg
Column 3: titus2homemaker.com  (I think this is the source site.)
Column 4: https://titus2homemaker.com/2018/12/paleo-cookies/
Column 5: Paleo Cookies similar to sugar cookies (image description)
Column 6: 800 (image width)
Column 7: 1200 (image height)
Column 8: 2019-02-22 12:22:25

So you have that data for every post.  (Now if they would create the option to import my Pinterest account, that would be amazing!  I have 6,000+ Pins I can’t easily save.)

The export feature alone is enough to draw my patronage!  So this one looks like it could be a fantastic option for someone who primarily wants to be able to save his/her own bookmarks, but who might like to have the social feature as a secondary benefit.

 

In the process of considering that, though — whether the driving force was saving or sharing — it occurred to me that I don’t necessarily need the social aspect…which opens up another possibility.

Visual Bookmarking…on the Desktop

When I began to think through what I really want from Pinterest, it occurred to me that the social/sharing aspect is pretty secondary for me.  It’s a nice bonus, but what I really want is to be able to save and organize my own bookmarks, in a format I can visually browse.  That means I don’t necessarily need for the result to be online at all.  In fact, a desktop option would give me complete control over what I save, regardless of what the “powers that be” decide is or isn’t “acceptable” content.

With that in mind, I realized that I already have software on my computer that will do exactly what I need it to do!

If you’ve seen my post about wardrobe organization, you saw me describe how Eagle works.  In short, this cross-platform software saves an image and allows you to tag it, add a link, and/or add a description — exactly what we need for a Pin to do (if it doesn’t have to be shared).

So it’s possible to create a new “library” within the software (keep it separate from your wardrobe!) and store “pins” there.  They can go into subfolders, just like you’d put Pins on Boards, and then you can add a link and description, just like you would a Pin.  And you can add tags, which you can then search on, either within a given folder or across all folders in that library.

There are a number of options for getting images into the software, from dragging-and-dropping, to right-clicking and choosing the “add to Eagle” option, to using the available browser add-on.  (Eagle will add the image to the open library, so be sure you’re in the right one first!)  Do be aware that when I tried to move my Pins over, I found that Eagle’s batch download did not pull all the images from a given board, and neither did saving the board as an offline webpage.  So if you’re wanting to move existing Pins over, you’ll need to do some manual moving.  Which is a nuisance, but, hey, that kind of thing is exactly why we’re considering alternatives to Pinterest, right?